


Someday, and What’s Next

by MoreHuman



Category: The Good Place (TV), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 19:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21397285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoreHuman/pseuds/MoreHuman
Summary: What if the Bad Place demons had sent Logan Echolls to the experiment instead of Linda?A weird little crossover/AU that turned into a weird little fix-it.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 74
Collections: Broken Bestiary





	Someday, and What’s Next

His mind was blank, that was the first thing Logan noticed. Opening his eyes felt like waking up after a particularly dead-to-the-world sleep, except without the usual, gradual realization of where he was and what he’d been doing right before this moment.

The second thing he noticed were the words stenciled in bright green on the wall across from him: “Welcome! Everything is fine.”

The third thing he noticed was–

“Logan,” said the tiny blonde in the doorway, inclining her head toward the room beyond. “Come on in.”

_Veronica_. He felt his body relax. Whatever was going on, it would be all right. He stood and realized he’d been sitting on a couch in a waiting area somewhere on the style spectrum between upscale funeral parlor and _Mad Men_. 

“Where are we?” he asked, following Veronica through the door into an office with a large desk and, for some reason, a framed portrait from the 70s. A tall, white haired man with a bow tie stood near the far corner of the desk. “And who’s this?”

The bow tie man exchanged a glance with Veronica, clearly thrown by his use of the familiar, collective “we.” When she returned the same uncertain look, Logan wasn’t surprised. By now he’d had a chance to really take her in. The pantsuit was all wrong, of course—a fashion choice Veronica would only make when working a case—but there was an openness about her demeanor that was even more ill-fitting. Her smile didn’t seem genuine, exactly, but it was unguarded in a way that Veronica only let hers get when she had no other choice. 

_Not Veronica_. He noted in passing how easily he accepted this fact and moved on. It felt akin to dream logic—when you realize that the person you assumed was your dentist because he looks exactly like your dentist is actually a roller coaster operator at a carnival. And you just go with it because your dream self wants on that coaster.

“Sorry,” Logan said, shaking his head slightly. “I thought you were—someone else.”

“Happens more than you’d think.” She shared another glance with bow tie man, this one dark, but otherwise unreadable. Then her smile was back. “My name is Eleanor, and this is Michael. Have a seat.”

Logan sat in the chair offered, and Eleanor settled behind the desk across from him. He half expected to see an “Eleanor Whoever, P.I.” nameplate in front of her, but there was nothing.

Bow tie man—Michael—perched on one corner of the desk and regarded Logan with the kind of warm, reassuring expression that always sent his daddy issues and distrust of authority popping up like whack-a-mole. “We’re here to welcome you to the afterlife.”

“I–” If he’d had a sentence planned to follow that word, it evaporated on his tongue. “The—I’m…?”

“Dead, yes.” Eleanor said. “You died down on earth, and now you’re on to what’s next.”

“And what’s next is…?” Logan glanced around the room, but couldn’t find any clues. It looked like a stripmall divorce lawyer’s office.

“Well, usually, one of two places,” Eleanor said.

Michael put up a hand as if the gesture could slow Logan’s racing thoughts. “Not quite the concept of heaven or hell that you might be picturing.”

“But something close,” Eleanor clarified, tagging back in on what was clearly a well-rehearsed routine. “Don’t worry, though. You, Logan Echolls, are in the Good Place.”

They all sat in silence for a few moments, the two of them beaming at him with kind, expectant smiles. Logan’s mouth twisted exactly once, and then he was suddenly laughing. Really laughing. Doubled over, one hand pressed to his stomach, the other to his mouth—the works.

“Sorry, yeah. No,” he said as soon as he could manage, wiping at his streaming eyes. “I’m not buying it.”

Eleanor’s face shifted to a look of sympathy that, constructed as it was from Veronica’s features, he almost couldn’t bear. “I know this might be difficult to accept. But I’m afraid it’s true. You’ve died.”

“Oh no, not that part. Yeah, that makes sense. I’d have to be dead to be caught in the same room with someone in this outfit.” Logan hooked his thumb in Michael’s direction. “I mean the part about this being the Good Place.”

Michael stopped defensively smoothing his pocket square and leapt up with a squeak—an actual _squeak_—of alarm.

Eleanor put a hand on his arm without taking her eyes off Logan. “Sorry, you think you’re in…?”

“You say there’s a heaven-like place, and a hell-like place, right? Well, I know the spot I earned in that equation, and it’s not where you’re telling me. So either something’s seriously off in your calculations, or you’re lying to me right now.”

Eleanor picked a clipboard up off the desk in front of her and glanced through it. Her blue eyes did a much worse job hiding her rising panic than Veronica’s, but her voice stayed steady. 

“It says here you were a Naval fighter pilot-turned-intelligence officer that traveled the world defusing hotspots of terrorist activity, attended therapy regularly, and rode a bike everywhere to save the planet.” Eleanor paused, gulped, and when she returned her eyes to his, the panic had a slight tinge of horniness to it. “That doesn’t strike you as Good Place-worthy?”

Logan smirked. “I’m guessing you haven’t seen my juvenile record.”

Michael snatched the clipboard and flipped through the few pages it contained. Then he flipped through them again. “It’s not here. They didn’t send it. Why didn’t they send it, Eleanor?”

“Michael, breathe. Take my seat.” Eleanor stood and strode to the far corner of the room with determination. “We’ll ask Janet. Hey, Janet?”

There was a soft _bing_ and a woman appeared next to Eleanor. Just straight up materialized out of thin air. So there were weirder things in the afterlife than bow ties.

“Janet,” Eleanor continued without skipping a beat, “we seem to be missing parts of our latest file. Can you help fill in the blanks?”

“Yes, I can do that,” Janet replied, smiling a plastic Barbie smile that somehow kind of worked for her.

Logan was on his feet now, too. “Hold on, who are you?”

“Not a who,” Janet corrected automatically, turning her cheerfulness toward him. He managed not to recoil. “I’m Janet. I can access all the knowledge in the universe. Among other things.”

“Janet,” Eleanor continued, “we need to get some more background on…”

She trailed off, staring blankly in his direction. He refused to let himself register how painful it was to watch someone who looked exactly like Veronica forget his name.

“Logan,” he prompted. “Echolls.”

“Yes, on Logan here.”

“Sure thing,” Janet said, all brightness. “What would you like to know?”

“Why don’t you start,” Logan cut in before Eleanor could speak, “with what I was up to between junior and senior year of high school?”

“Which part? How you were on trial for murder, or how you burned down a community pool, or how you responded violently when your girlfriend broke up with you?”

Logan swept an arm in Eleanor’s direction, palm up in a gesture of _You see?_ “Couldn’t have summed it up better myself.”

“I also have a selection of your favorite racist and classist insults from this period,” Janet continued. “I could read them out if you want.”

He thought he hid his flinch, but a squint from Eleanor let him know she caught it.

“That’s not who you are anymore, though.” She made it sound not like reassurance, but an observation of fact. 

“Depends on who you ask,” Logan deflected. He was getting sick of these people acting like they knew him.

“If I asked you?”

“I think people are always who they used to be,” Logan replied, trying not to sound like it had taken him years of sleepless nights to reach this conclusion.

“Even when they decide to be better?”

“If they weren’t who they used to be anymore, they’d stop trying to be better.”

He braced for another question, but instead Eleanor just smiled. A new, triumphant smile that made him think of Veronica cracking a case.

“Why don’t we take a tour of the neighborhood?” she asked, moving toward the door. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. I think he can help convince you that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

The sight of her hand on the doorknob suddenly overwhelmed him. Outside this room was apparently a neighborhood. Where there were apparently other people. And who knew what else. Wherever he was going next, whether it was really the Good Place or an elaborate lie, he could never go back. He was dead.

“Hold on. If I’m dead, how come I don’t remember how I died?”

“Oh,” Eleanor said, waving a hand. “Sometimes the brain erases the memory if it’s particularly traumatic or… embarrassing.”

Logan turned to Janet, still standing there with her at-the-ready grin. “But you know everything, right? Tell me how I died.”

“You were blown up,” Janet said.

He’d been prepared for that answer as soon as Eleanor said the word “traumatic,” but he still swallowed hard. “IED?”

“Car bomb.”

“Overseas?”

“In the alley behind your apartment.”

“Sorry… what?”

“It was street cleaning day and you didn’t want to get a ticket. A serial bomber had planted a backpack with the last of his bombs in the backseat earlier that day, right before he was arrested and taken away by police. When you went to move the car, the timed detonator went off.”

Details started surfacing in Logan’s fuzzy mind. That last case Veronica had been working, it was a serial bomber. The pizza guy. He must’ve–

“The bomb was meant for your wife, but it got you instead,” Janet concluded. Then she read Logan’s expression and added, “Oh, it was also your wedding day.”

“Oof.” Michael winced and everyone jumped, like they’d forgotten he was in the room. “Bleak.”

“Fork,” Logan said, reaching for his chair. “I need to sit down. Fork. Fork. Why am I saying fork?”

But no one was listening to him. Janet and Michael were both looking at Eleanor, who was frozen in place, staring at the floor. This woman definitely wasn’t Veronica, but Logan could still tell when her wheels were turning.

“Eleanor?” Michael asked. “What are you thinking?”

“It’s probably nothing,” she said, frowning. “Let me see the clipboard?”

Michael handed it over, but she barely glanced at the first sheet before looking back at Logan.

“Your wife, Veronica. She’s a private detective?”

“Last I checked,” Logan replied. “But I’m feeling a little out of the loop at the–”

“And you’re an intelligence officer…” Eleanor turned to Janet, not listening. “And the police were also in the car where the bomb was planted. Anyone else?”

“Veronica’s father, also a P.I.”

“And out of all those experts in noticing things, none of you noticed the bomb, and you ended up dead. Because you went to move your car at exactly the wrong moment. Because of street cleaning.” Eleanor sounded like she was talking to herself, but she had turned to Michael now. “It all just seems a little… convenient.”

“Trust me,” Logan scoffed, “it’s not the first time the universe has really piled it on me.”

“I’m not thinking about the universe,” Eleanor said, still staring at Michael. “I’m thinking…”

“Demons,” Michael said.

It was like the word reversed a spell cast over Eleanor. The pantsuit stayed on, but the sense of propriety and professionalism it represented melted from her in an instant, leaving behind a raw, jangling nerve of a person. Logan had more or less assumed he was talking to some kind of otherworldly authority this whole time. Maybe not the traditional definition of a deity, but something along those lines. But no, this chick was wholly human. He wasn’t following much else about what just happened, but he could follow that.

“Right?” Eleanor crowed. “It’s the only explanation!”

“I don’t understand, though.” Michael was on his feet, pacing behind the desk. “Why would the Bad Place demons go to all that trouble just to send us this particular human?”

“They obviously sent him here to tempt some bad behavior out of me. I mean, look at him!” Eleanor whirled to face Logan, more than a tinge of horniness in her gaze now. “Question: were you ever a mailman?”

“He was not,” Janet interjected. Whatever she was, it was definitely not human.

“And sorry, I’m a married man.” Logan shrugged. “Or so I was just informed.”

Eleanor rearranged her face in a hurry, and her body jolted through a series of disaffected postures. “That’s cool, I’m seeing someone too. Kind of. It’s complicated. Whatever. Who cares why the demons wanted him here? It’s _definitely_ cheating, and we _definitely_ caught them!”

Michael clapped his hands together like a TV commercial dad watching the Super Bowl. Whether he was human or not, Logan hated him. 

“Oh, they are going to be in big trouble!” Michael cheered. “Janet, call the Judge and Shawn.”

***

Of course they had video conferences in hell.

Because this _was_ hell. Or the non-sectarian equivalent of it, anyway. That was about the only thing Logan could tell for sure from the argument playing out in front of him. The rest was all a jumble of “the experiment,” and “saving humanity,” and “wasp nostrils.”

“But you don’t understand,” the guy on the screen was whining. He looked like an overgrown leprechaun with a middle manager bank job, but was actually hell’s Head Demon or something. For some reason his name was Shawn. “If we’d waited for him to die his natural death, there wouldn’t be so much backslide potential!”

“You’re right about that bit,” responded the Judge from the other side of the split screen. Now here was an otherworldly authority if Logan had ever seen one. Even if she was eating a burrito, it was obvious. She stopped leafing through his file and loaded on more hot sauce. “Mr. Echolls really does get a better hold on his self doubt later in life. But that doesn’t mean you get to kill him early, Shawn.”

“It’s not fair to give people enough time on Earth to better themselves. That’s like studying for the test and then acing the test. It’s cheating!”

“That’s literally the opposite of cheating,” Eleanor said. She was perched on the edge of the desk, legs swinging. “And trust me, I was voted ‘Most Likely to Get Caught Cheating’ by my senior class, so I would know!”

Janet sidled close to her and spoke low. “I think that’s actually more of an own on yourself than on–”

“Yeah, I heard it!” 

Eleanor clearly had a complicated sense of pride about being a disaster. She looked less like Veronica by the second.

“Judge,” Michael spoke up, like he was the only adult in the room. Logan felt an itching in his palms. “What’s going to happen to the experiment?”

“Well,” the Judge said around a bite of her burrito, then swallowed and wiped her mouth. “First of all, you’re all very lucky I’m in a show hole right now, or I’d be much more upset about this interruption. Any recommendations, by the way? What are people on Earth watching these days?”

It took everyone turning to look his way before Logan realized the question was aimed at him. It was the first time anyone had even acknowledged he was in the room since the screens popped up.

“Um.” He tried to mentally flip through his DVR queue, but his brain was feeling a bit overtaxed. _Do I even have a brain if I’m dead?_ he wondered, which didn’t help.

“Um,” he said again. “Mostly just a bunch of lackluster revivals?”

The Judge smiled fondly. “You humans do love your diminishing returns. It’s so cute. Anyway, where was I?”

“Second of all,” Janet said.

“Yes. Second of all,” the Judge continued absently, scribbling something onto the notepad in front of her, “Mr. Echolls is terminated from the experiment as of this moment. Chidi will be the fourth human.”

This announcement detonated an explosion of emotions in the room and onscreen, none of which meant anything to Logan. He was still thinking about “terminated.” He didn’t like the sound of that.

“Sorry, where am I going?” Logan asked, crossing to stand in front of the Judge’s side of the screen, hoping that would help him be heard over Shawn’s rage, Michael’s celebration, and whatever was going on with Eleanor. He had no idea how the afterlife’s IT worked.

“Where else? Back to the rest of your life,” she replied, still looking down at her notepad and scribbling with one hand. The other she raised over her head. She snapped.

And just like that, Logan’s mind went blank again.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this before the full plot with Linda was revealed, so now the demons’ motivations make no sense with canon, but try not to think about it too hard, okay?


End file.
